Last week I participated in a Tweetchat with Liz Weston, J.D. Roth, MP Dunleavey and other personal finance geeks. One of the questions was, “I’m in my 40s and just started saving. What advice would you give beginners to make the most and try to catch up?”

An onslaught of 140-character advice poured out, but J.D. Roth summed it up best of all: “The best thing when starting to save late in life is to just DO it. Don’t worry about lost time. Just save.”

Easier said than done, to be sure. But necessary nonetheless.

On Tuesday I participated in a Tweetchat sponsored by FT Press, an imprint of Pearson and publisher of books by my MSN Money colleague Liz Weston. If you missed the event, at least some of the Tweets can be found in the publisher’s Tweetchat room. A spokeswoman for the company says a .pdf summary of the questions and discussion is in the works.

To promote the chat, FT Press gave out a few copies of “Deal With Your Debt” to random questioners. (Did any of you win? Tell us!) Now it’s my turn to hand out the revised and updated version of this book, which I can happily say is written for people in the real world.

Just check the description: “Award-winning personal finance expert Liz Weston reveals why it’s simply impractical to ‘just pay off every dime’ and ‘live forever debt free’ — and why trying to do so can actually make you poorer. It’s smarter to control and manage your debt, and Weston shows you how.”

Got money questions? One of them might win you a copy of Liz Weston’s updated and revised Deal with Your Debt.

She’s hosting one heck of a Tweetchat on Thursday, May 9, and will be giving away several copies of the book to folks who submit questions ahead of time (more on that in a minute).

Even if you don’t need the book, surely you know someone who does.

On Tuesday I participated in a TweetChat sponsored by Ally Bank, on the topic of “teaching kids the value of money.” One of the responses from another participant frankly startled me.

The question: “When is the right time to talk to your children about credit card debt?”

The answer: “I’d say when they have their own card (and a real sense of consequences), most likely as a freshman in college.”

After picking my jaw up off the kitchen table, I sent out this response: “Waiting till they have their own card is like waiting til daughter gets pregnant to say, “Don’t misuse that thing, y’hear?”

As I hinted in “Thanks a million,” changes are afoot in the way I do business at MSN Money. Specifically: Frugal Nation is no more. Instead, I’ll be writing three times a week (not five!) at MSN Money Smart Spending.

Relieved? Yes. But sad, too.

After all, Frugal Nation was my baby alone: For more than a year I posted five times a week, offering “save money today” advice and also bigger-picture articles about money and how we use it, abuse it and sometimes deify it.